“To want is to have a weakness. It's this weakness, whatever it is, that entices me. It's like a small crack in a wall, before now impenetrable.”
― The Handmaid’s Tale
― The Handmaid’s Tale
“Then as in so many periods, notoriety was more desirable for a politician than obscurity.”
― Augustus: First Emperor of Rome
― Augustus: First Emperor of Rome
“Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash, light blue, light mauve, and the darker ones, velvet and purple, black cat's ears in the sun, indigo shadow, and the bleeding hearts, so female in shape it was a surprise they'd not long since been rooted out. There is something subversive about this garden of Serena's, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamor to be heard, though silently.”
― The Handmaid’s Tale
― The Handmaid’s Tale
“And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!”
― The Waves
― The Waves
“The losers could be as spectacularly cruel as the victors.”
― SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome
― SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome
Daisy’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Daisy’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Polls voted on by Daisy
Lists liked by Daisy










